


Yes or No?

by Josten10_Minyard03



Category: Andreil - Fandom, andrew minayrd, neil josten - Fandom, the foxhole court
Genre: All for the games, M/M, the foxhole court - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-30 11:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6422620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josten10_Minyard03/pseuds/Josten10_Minyard03





	1. 1

Chapter 1

We hadn't spoken since I stormed out of the dorm room three days ago. My temper- my father's temper- getting the best of me again. But this time as different. This time it was against Andrew. The Moriyamas have been demanding me to be better. Kevin can keep up easily, so why can't I? Missed shot here. Too slow there. They were watching like vultures and I just couldn’t get away. So when Andrew walked in on me packing up his old duffle bag, feels that anger flare under my skin.

"Stop" Andrew said, boredom dripping from his lips and posture as he leans against the doorframe.

When I doesn’t acknowledge him he says "Neil don’t be stupid". And that was more than enough.

I straightened to stand taller than Andrew to shout in his face.

"DON’T GIVE ME THAT. DON’T YOU DARE TRY AND TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I THOUGHT COMING HERE WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE THINGS BETTER. WHY CANY ANYONE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE". I mean the Moriyamas, not Andrew, but I didn’t say that. I didn’t clarify that. I should have explained, but I ran like I always did.  
\---------

The next morning when Neil hadn't come back, I asked Nicky if Neil had stayed with them last night. When Nicky gave me a curious tilt of his head, I started for the roof.  
I cracked the door open at the top of the stairs, quiet enough to not be heard. My breath caught in my chest and cringed a little at what I saw. Neil had slept outside last night.  
Why can't anyone just leave me alone?  
He didn’t even want to sleep on the same floor as me.  
I closed the door.  
The silence between us goes on for two more nights. Neil sleeping with a bottle in hand and the stars over his head. Me alone with insecurities and demons stalking ever closer.

 

By the third day I had had enough. He wanted to go back to Andrew. I knew I was way out of line, but I couldn’t bring myself to go inside.  
Maybe this is better.  
With the Moriyamas hounding my every move, I as bound to slip up. And when that happened, they would cut me down like they should have the first time I started to make trouble for them. I needed to make sure nobody else got hurt when that happened. The Foxes would be sad, yes, but they were smart. They wouldn’t raise a finger. Andrew on the other hand, would raise hell. Andrew. He would get hurt the most. He was the one the mattered the most. I can't let that happen. 

\------  
I didn’t know that it was Neil who kept the nightmares at bay, I could feel the swollen bags under my eyes. So I found himself climbing the stairs to the roof again. I needed Neil back.

When I pushed the door open, I saw that Neil was staring out at the campus, lean body illuminated by the rising sun. I took no time to walk across the rooftop to stand in front of Neil. When he didn’t look at me I raised a hand and brushed a thumb over Neil’s scarred cheek.

"Yes or no?" 

Those words spoken a thousand times though delighted laughs and whispered through bruised lips. I felt my demons get a suffocating grip on my throat as I heard Neil whisper "No". 

Neil walked inside.


	2. Chapter 2

The room is thick with tension but nobody is brave enough to break the silence as I glance between my two teammates. Andrew sits beside me, eyes glazed over and unblinking. I follow his gaze to the wall beside us to the picture of him and Neil at the airport, bodies drawn close.

Movement has me glance to Neil on the opposite side of the room. Arms crossed, eyes closed, shifting his weight between his feet.This oddity in routine left everyone on edge and an empty seat between Andrew and I. If Wymack notices this, it doesn’t show.

“Alright bastards, we have a home game against the Jackals in two weeks. Remember last year, how they set out to injure players rather than score? Well, they haven’t changed”.

“They have the most red cares in the league this year.” I inquire.

“Thanks for the reminder Kevin, really encouraging”

I shoot Nicky a fixed glare.

“You ladies done bitching?” Coach raised his eyebrows in question “Kevin I want you working on left handed drills. Andrew and Neil, I want you to practice serving from goal to down the court. Completely avoiding having the strikers in that middle shit show. That seems to be our best play for these kind of games. Can you two do that?” He points a finger at Andrew, then to Neil. If either of them heard, neither acknowledge it.

As if sensing that he wasn’t going to get an answer he turns and walks back towards his office, but yells behind him; “AND FOR FUCK SAKES STAY AWAY FROM THE BOARDS. I DON’T WANT TO BE SCRAPING YOUR ASSES OFF MY GLASS”.

As soon as Wymack was done, Neil pushed off the wall and was out the door. The action reminding everyone that something was very wrong. How long was this going to last? How was Neil going to perform on the court? How would the play be affected? The play wasn’t going to work if they were both acting like this. Will Andrew still pass to Neil if-

“What the fuck did you do this time?”

Andrew went from a rock statue to punching Nicky straight in the face. Too late I realized what had been said. Matt was out of his seat immediately, stepping between Nicky and Andrew. Daring him to make another move. Andrew stared back for only a second before he turned away and walked out just like Neil.

\------------------------------------------------------------  
What did I do this time?

We were fine and then suddenly we weren’t. Maybe he just didn’t want me anymore.

“Yes or no?”

“It’s always yes with you”

“Except when it’s a no”

I remember how his eyes suddenly turned serious as he gripped my chin through the plastic bag in the hotels shower after Baltimore.

“If you have to keep asking because- I’ll answer it as many times as you ask. But it’s always going to be yes”

It was foolish of me to actually believe him. I never thought it would hurt this much.  
\--------------------------------------------  
The breeze picked up as the sun dipped past the horizon. I couldn’t go inside even though the wind tore at my skin. Andrew might see me and make an attempt at fixing this. There was to this. There was only me. I was the only broken thing between us.

Can you fix me Andrew? Would you want to?

Time only became relevant again when I heard the door to the roof open behind me. Andrew? If I had to hurt him again, I don’t think I’d make it another night.

“Neil we have practice in an hour”

It was Kevin.

I take slow drag of my cigarette before replying. “I’ll meet you there”  
\------------------------------------------  
The drive to the court was smothered in thick silence. When I told Andrew that Neil would meet us at the court, he didn’t even bat an eye.

By the time we changed out, Neil was already sweating on the court. I recognized the drill immediately. I had spent hours upon hours working Neil to the bone with this drill. Every time he bounced the ball against the glass, the rebound knocked over a pylon. He had gone from struggling with the curve of the rebound to knocking down pylon after pylon in rapid succession. For a second I was mesmerized with how accurate he was.

He will be court. 

He didn’t notice our approach until I wacked on the court wall. Instead of looking our way he stopped immediately, stacked the pylons and walked to the opposite side of the court. Not looking at us. Not looking at Andrew.

We walked to our positions and started practice without a word.

 

I was only able to stomach half an hour of before I was fuming. When I hurled the ball at Andrew, it was sent flying back with a force made from anger. When Neil shot however, Andrew didn’t even lift his racket. But his eyes never left Neil’s figure, even when he was defecting my shots. He didn’t even have to try.We were never going to make the play like this. Not with whatever Andrew as having a tantrum over. I struggle with my helmet as I storm across the court. I tower over him as I curl my fingers through his helmet, forcing him to look at me as I shout in his face.

“ANDREW WOULD YOU GET A FUCKING GRIP. WE ARE GOING TO LOSE. THIS. GAME. BECAUSE YOU CAN’T KEEP YOUR SHIT TOGETHER”. My breaths come hard and uneven.  
I waited for something, anything. Some form of retaliation but nothing came. When I looked into his eyes I shuddered. He just looked….empty.

I watched as he brushed past me to the court door. Just how he walked looked like he was in physical pain, slow and defeated. When Andrew walked out of sight I turned back to Neil just in time to see him punch the glass and crumble against the wall.

They were breaking each other.  
\--------------------------------------------

I had been driving for hours since I abandoned Kevin and Neil at the court. I took the road back to the Fox tower, Kevin would have found his own ay back by now, and he didn’t need me. He had Neil to watch his back.

The halls to the dorm absorbed all sound as I slide the key in the lock and walk inside. I feel pressure in my chest and my knees weaken as reality rips back into focus. I didn’t realize I was expecting to see Neil hunched over his desk or sprawled across his bed. But no. Neil was sleeping somewhere else.

Somewhere away from you

It becomes harder to breath as I sit down at the desk-Neil’s desk- and look at the mess Neil left behind. Untidy notes in his hurried writing scattered across the surface.  
Light passed the window and something on the corner of the desk catches my eye. Small, silver and painfully familiar. I reach over and pick up the two objects piled on top of one another.

It wasn’t the fact that they were the keys to the car and to the house in Columbia that hurt the most. It hurt that they were obviously Neil’s. My thumb traces over the small fox paw prints he had engraved on the metal. I close my eyes as I try and understand what this means. I remember thinking in the hotel room after Baltimore, holding Neil’s cut faced. He will save me. He is my home. I thought I could finally have something that wouldn’t leave me.

Keys meant home to Neil, he had told me as much. But now he’s given them back to me. I’m not Neil’s home anymore. Blood swells in my fist as the keys bite into my palm.

Why can’t you let anything in?

I let you in.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up to find Andrew asleep at Neil’s desk. His eyes moved frantically behind his pale eyelids. The small puddle of blood pooled by his feet had long since dried into the carpet. 

I start towards the desk, ready to interrogate him about his little drama production last night, when the thick stench of alcohol and cigarettes hits me. He had gotten back hours ago. How much did he drink for the smell to still be so potent? Thinking better of it I walked to the front door, not wanting to be here when Andrew woke up.

Neil hadn’t been much better off last night, completely distracted after Andrew left the court. I wasn’t surprised when he kept missing shots on the open net considering his eyes kept flickering to the court doors, as if expecting Andrew to come back. Neil had stormed into the change room after I called an end to practice early, both of us done with each other’s presence.

I was scared that Neil had left before I got out of the showers when I didn’t see him immediately in the lobby. My breaths came short and jagged as I thought of walking alone back to the tower. Everyone knew that I hadn’t been alone since Mum died and I was sent to Evermore. Riko never gave me a chance, but it was always Andrew or Neil who was by my side.

Apparently whatever they were going though, Neil wasn’t going to break their silent promise to each other now. When I decided that I was going to have to get a grip and walk back alone, angry with myself for the weakness, I turned the corner towards the door to see Neil standing there waiting for me. He stayed at my side all the way back to the Fox Tower and even then, he waited until I was standing inside the open door before he turned and started running into the darkness that surrounded the side of the building.

The rest of the day was slow going. Apparently Andrew hadn’t moved much over the span of the day since he was sitting on the window ledge having a cigarette when I got back to the dorm. As the sun made its decent across the sky it highlighted creases and bones in Andrews face.

A few months after Andrew and Neil had made their relationship official I had begun to notice laugh lines start to frame Andrew’s eyes. And for the first time ever, we had seen that Andrew had a single dimple in his left cheek. Looking at Andrew now, you wouldn’t be able to tell any of that existed. He looked like he did before we signed Neil onto us. Before he was taken off his medication. Instead of laugh lines and dimples, when I looked at Andrew now I saw nothing.

 

Andrew didn’t move from his ledge until I announced it was time for practice.

“Andrew I expect you to try at practice tonight-“he shouldered past me before I could finish.

Once again the car ride was utterly silent. I saw Andrew visibly stiffen as we pull up in front of the court. I slide out of the car and walk over to Neil. He was leaning against the door, smoking, and he was looking directly at Andrew.

“You shouldn’t be smoking if you want to make court” trying to distract him with something more important.

“I don’t smoke” he replied as he took another drag. Smartass. 

I look back to the car when I realize Andrew was still in the car. He looked small and pale as he held Neil’s unflinching gaze through the windshield, he was completely still. 

Neil was the first to break contact, he pushed himself off the wall and walked inside the court without a second glance at Andrew. My head cranes around again as I hear the black car reverse out of the parking lot and speed away.

 

I found out the next day that Andrew had slept on a park bench across campus. Renee had found him when she was on her nightly run. She had ended up sleeping on the ground next to Andrew’s bench when he refused to move and she refused to leave him. Now the rest of the Foxes -including Renee – were waiting on Andrew to show up. Wymack had more to say about our next game and he wouldn’t start without Andrew present.

It was close to 40 minutes later when Andrew walked in without a single word. I’m across the room in a second and standing in front of Andrew like I’ve done countless number of times before.

“Whatever you’ve done this time to make Neil hate you, that’s your problem. Grow up and don’t bring your personal shit onto my court. Do you really want to be the reason Neil doesn’t make court? Do you want to take that from him too?”

At first I thought the shocked expressions around the room ere from my words. But then I felt the sharp slash of fire across my chest. I look down to see the dark read soak though my shirt. Not deep enough to do any real damage, but it’s deeper than he’s ever cut me before. Andrew steps back and now I can see the gleaming steel in his hand. His knifes. Neil was pale and it looked as if tears brimmed his eyes. He had pushed off the wall, as if to move to Andrew but he had stopped himself short. Andrew turned around and looked directly at Neil. Neil looked right back. Then Andrew left the court.  
\-----------  
Andrew had his knifes back. The realization makes it feel like every cut and scar on my body was opening again. The cold air rips the breath from my lips as I struggle to breath. I knew I was hurting him, I just didn’t know I was destroying him. I remember the day he wordlessly handed me a sizable pile of knifes.

“What’s this?” He turned his back to me.

“Knifes. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Don’t be vague then. Why do I have them?” He turned back to face me. He grips my chin as he replies. 

“Riko and Drake are dead. I don’t have to fight anymore Neil. You’re enough”

And then he kissed me before I could say anything.

 

He gave me those knifes because he had me to keep him steady and then I left him all alone. What was I thinking? Tears flow freely down my cheeks as I slump to the ground. I wrap my arms around my shaking torso in an attempt to keep myself from falling apart.  
I fall asleep that night with dried tears on my cheeks and an empty feeling replacing my body.

I didn’t want to be Neil anymore.


End file.
